Landscapes & Nightscapes by Luis Argerich

Foggyscapes

Fog is a wonderful and powerful element in Landscapes, it can turn a very simple and uninteresting scene in a dramatic picture. In some way fog helps the photographer to build abstractions removing elements from the scene and leaving only the fog and those elements that are strong enough to be seen thru it.

The Day the Sun Didn't Work

Most of my pictures involving fog are backlit, the fog helps to reduce the bright of the sun making the exposure easier; even though a single exposure is not always enough and some of the pictures need a blend of several exposures. The backlit scene works highlighting the silhouetted elements thru the fog, trees, specially those without leaves and mountains are perfect elements in a foggyscape.

The Red Fog

Predicting fog is difficult, the best indicator for fog is to have the dew point very close to the real temperature and moisture in the air. The absence of wind is also critical. If the weather is cold less moisture is needed that’s why we winter is the perfect season to shoot fog.

Foggyscape

In order to shoot fog we usually need to wake up really early, fog is more dense in the early mornings and dissipates as the sun heats the earth surface. The first rays of light shining thru the fog can tint it in reds and yellows producing unpredictable light in our scene, those are special moments that can really produce stunning pictures.

Winter Morning

Of course when you are in a dense fog area your visibility is very limited so composing the picture is difficult, one approach is to say “I feel lucky” choose a random spot and hope it works. If you are more serious you should previously scout the area for interesting compositions and then revisit them in a foggy day to see what happens. Knowing with anticipation the elements on the scene helps a lot. It’s probably a good idea to draw a sketch of the area and use it as a reference map.

The pictures presented in this short article were taken at different places of the Buenos Aires province in Argentina, you can find some more in my set Foggyscapes on Flickr.